Fend Off LGBT Activists in ‘Call of Taburetka’

Last week in Tbilisi, Georgia (the country north of Turkey, not the state) an LGBT rally, gathered in celebration of International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, was met with brutal opposition by conservative protestors, led by authorities of the Georgian Orthodox Church. The anti-gay protestors, numbering in the thousands, violently broke through police barricades to put and end to the rally before it even had a chance to get started. Police attempted to evacuate the rally attendees on buses but protestors attacked those as well, going so far as to break windows with rocks and trash cans as the buses departed. 13 were injured during the violent exchange.

The Prime Minister of Georgia and Mayor of Tbilisi both endorsed the rally, noting that LGBT citizens had a constitutional right to hold it. Patriarch Ilia II, leader of the Georgian Orthodox Church, on the other hand released a statement on the rally which he described as a “violation on the rights of the majority.”

In Call of Taburetka, or Call of the Stool, players control a stool-wielding priest as they beat their way through hordes of LGBT activists, flying homosexuals, and evacuation buses. The priest seems to magically float up and down the screen, endless shooter style, firing stools at the oncoming queers. The more gays and vehicles you take down the higher your score goes.

That’s right now you can do this:

…in between Farmville jaunts and poke wars.

Call of Taburetka has already been flagged for review by Facebook, and many users have posted on the game’s official page to let the creators know how they feel about the homophobic flash title. However the game’s creators argue that the game is not homophobic, rather it is merely a sarcastic take on the day’s events, with some going so far as to argue that it is in fact anti-homophobic.

Give me a break.

While there is clearly a bit of a language barrier happening here it can’t be denied that the game is blatantly homophobic. Players are literally taking down gay people because they are gay. How is that anything other than homophobic? This isn’t a grey-area. This isn’t a case of casual homophobia the likes of which we’ve seen plenty of the last few weeks. And even through the language barrier there is a sense of “Why don’t you get the joke?” that is insulting regardless of spoken tongue.

Maybe I’m missing something but I’ve never found anything ‘funny’ about priests beating gay people with chairs.

Now I’m not typically one for censorship of any sort, but this form of interactive anti-gay violence is simply unacceptable no matter which way you look at it. While real-life events like this are certainly not exempt from direct reference or parody, there’s a lot to be said about the taste level involved in this shoddily thrown together title that popped up mere days after the violent affair. There’s also a big difference between knowing how to take a joke and knowing when something is just plain wrong. A difference that the Taburetka developers have clearly missed.

(Managing Editor and Writer) Sal lives in the beautiful city of San Francisco where he splits his time between playing games, watching copious amounts of television, and occasionally going outside. He has written for GayGamer, Gamezone, Kinky, and TeamBackpack. He studied creative writing and theatre at SFSU, and when not gaming can most likely be found on stage somewhere. You can keep up with him on twitter @salmattos

It’s not that “it’s not for me,” it’s that it IS for people who actually WANT to harm LGBT individuals and activists.

Is it really so outside of the realm of understanding that bigots and violent fundamentalists might play this game and feel a wave of joy and validation? And that that, itself, is encouraging hate and violence?

Reported and chose to receive an email when they followed up. Got the following:

“Thanks for your recent report of a potential violation on Facebook. After reviewing your report, we were not able to confirm that the specific page you reported violates Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities.”

also, I would suggest the author of this post at least consult someone within the Georgian LGBT movement before waging a holy war against this game. There is A LOT of glorified homophobia going on inside Georgia at the moment, all of it definitely worth opposing and fighting on the international level. This little game however, is quite definitely not that case.

As someone who lives in Georgia and is completely opposed to the homophobic movement, I can testify that the game’s not in any way intended as gay propaganda, quite the opposite. The idea here is to spotlight the homophobic priest who’s attacking peaceful protesters with his stool and make fun of HIM, not the LGBT activists. The violent elements within the Georgian Orthodox church are mostly a taboo subject here and the church is currently doing its best to cover up that incident. Every bit of publicity in this case is a step against the church and against the homophobes.

The Georgian people have some nerve, thinking they can conduct their LGBT rights advocacy however they want.

Shame on them for trying to shame their own priests and ironically highlight the fact that the people committing violence are the people who are supposedly Christian.

It’s a good thing Georgians have Western watchers – people who know so much about Georgia that they need to be told that Georgia is a country – looking out for them to prevent them from making meaningful progress in a way that is appropriate for the Georgian cultural context and the Georgian sense of humor. It would be terrible if Georgians secured rights for LGBT individuals in their country on their own terms.

As someone who has personally been an LGBT rights advocate IN Georgia, I just want to personally thank you for your role in censoring one of the few instruments Georgians have ever produced to satirize and criticize their priesthood. Next time I’m staring at a wall of bearded men in black chanting “fuck you” in Georgian, I’ll be glad to know that people in America have our back.

*yawn
heard that some website called “gaygamer” won some award they invented specially to pander to y’all at the e3, huh, i wonder if theyd give an award to a website called true christian soldier gamer or somesuch
yeah yeah yeah sure, your so prosecuted and victimized for your choice, oh woe is you

Keep on keepin’ on, hombre — and i mean that in all sincerity. With a disregard for punctuation, a command of the English language that is tenuous at best, and an invokation of our Risen Lord and Savior -he’s the guy that brought us “love your enemies,” by the by – we on the side of good sense couldn’t ask for a better advertisement for GLBT rights.

Kisses, and for the love of all that is sacrosanct in our great nation, please keep writing at a fourth grade level — the “triple negative” in the last comment (an achievement in and of itself) bears special recognition.